OK this is getting rather silly regarding hard mode Flashpoint GF

Sure Tal

Oh can you please show me in the User End Agreement where joining a guild is mandatory to experience any portion of game?

Ill wait

I have been hearing the "join a guild" excuse for 2+ decades now
Its a terrible excuse forged of limited understanding

Now if I said I want to form a premade group that will only play with each other
Then joining a guild to find such a thing would make sense

But since thread is about GROUP FINDER Flashpoints (IE: Finding a group you dont normally play with)

The whole join a guild nonsense is just that
short sighted and very arrogant nonsense

Joining a guild is NOT a mandatory aspect of MMORPGs and NO CONTENT IN GAME is restricted to guilds only.

And for the record I was in a guild.
They all left for different guilds and then different games while I was gone awaiting shoulder surgery
I have not found a new one that meets my tastes yet since being back
But thats got nothing to do with topic of thread.

No.

There's no need to keep enabling and encouraging that kind of behavior.

So, you want to play with others (FP runs) but at the same time you don't want to play with others (Guild)? Confused, I am...

leveling FP's are a mxied bag. Don't take them as an indicator for anything. The release of KDY completely ruined the experience on many occasion as you don't need to do anything but show up for those.

Also, when you start doing HMFP's, do 10 before you decide how good or bad the experience is because random group of people is random.

Force Cloak - Uses the Force to vanish from sight, immediately exiting combat and entering stealth mode. For 10 seconds, you become virtually undetectable, but all healing done and received is decreased by 100%.

Oh right, of course, I totally missed that ability in your list

Ok here's my view to the age old debakle of tanks vs no tanks.

I have "Wow since release" and "DPS and Tank since then" on my "CVV (curriculum vitae virtualis)". Warrior and Melee player. Some rogueish tendencies but mostly "no bull-sh*t-in-your-face!-playstyle". And mostly dps. Mentality... ya know?

The "no tanks" and "no Hheals" problem has been around. Every game. Always. There has never been enough Tanks even when Fury+Defense made the tanks in world of warcraft unkillable instances of mass destruction in PvP and PvE. There where lots of players going tank spec. Even for questing. But not as Tanks in instances. So it's not JUST that tanks are... slower. (They are, it drives me away from leveling as tank every time I start a character who could tank). Solo performance is important and should not be penalized for those who tank or heal. The companion-system is a cool idea. But as long as a dps+heal is faster as a tank+dps.. and feels smoother... and feels more like the character is the 'driver'... dps will be solo king.
Solo performance solution that affects neither pvp nor fp or ops: Give tanks and heals for deep heal-spec 2 companions at deep-spec-bonus.

The other part is difficult. Being the tank puts you in the "all eyes on you" position. (Ends up all flames on you - mostly by dps players who haven't understood that 'good player' means 'One I have a good time playing with' and not 'baddest a*s in the virtual world with derp dps and huuuuuge epeen').
That role is not desireable unless you combine a few traits:
Being confident.
Being comfortable with attention.
Being knowledgable enough to do the 1st and 2nd.
Having a thick skin and nerves of steel (Bad dps and or bad heal make YOUR playtime a living hell)
These 4 are mandatory not optional!
Basically the only way to make this enjoyable is by having a guild and or friends to play with. At the same time this dictates your online-playtime and takes away the "I don't feel like playing so I don't play for 2 months" freedom without getting a bad conscience, because "your mates got you where you are and now you're gone" (Or was it you who got them where they are? semantics! ).

So there are few solo queue tanks. And it's not because of the class, but because of the responsibility and attention. Two things that are probably shunned by most. Especially in a game.

Tanks and or "Frontmen" (the ones leading the pack when creating a system without tanks) will always be missing and there is only ONE thing that can be efficiently done to 'improve' and 'make it more attractive': Make the tank role cater towards those that love attention, not the 'nice' ones. Give the coolest moves to the tank. Make them slightly larger than the other specs. Make them Solo-Kings (see suggestion about additional companion). And most importantly: make it easy for them to get their name known and on some scoreboard.. Add a display on the fleet and the website showing the top 3 solo tanks: "Tankboards" - remove dps ones... We should know if we pull our weight or not! Make Threat-Numbers as prominent as damage. Add a ranking for successful tank-jobs - like a pvp-leaderboard, just for successfull instances and TPS! Add total longed for vanity items as reward for high tank-scores. (That armor without the shoulder-parts from the juggernaught progression trailer, Hood-up/down versions of armor, even exclusive stuff). Add tank-seasons to achieve these... with top-spots that are hard to get and 'a good average that displays experience in tanking' that is reasonably reachable.

Yes... cater to the egomaniacs, the score-wh*res, the collectors, the full-time-gamers. The ones who will actually put up with almost anything in their 'free time'.

"But who would play dps then?" - Well, the normal ones. The ones who want an easy 'job' in pve. The ones who dislike leading, deciding and needing to know. The ones who - at the end of a work day - want some responsibility-less gameplay. And there will always be the dps that guilds need.

I still wouldn't tank. But maybe I'd perceive solo tanks with more respect than pitty and maybe that would be enough for more of the full-time-players to consider a role in tanking...

Good points.

Let me just say that tanking in SWTOR is a walk in the park compared to playing a Monk in Guild Wars. The amount of abuse was such that we had organised a strike and ignored pugging for few days.

Good ideas, but I think that most of the bonuses you mentioned are going a bit against classes who cannot tank. I for example, picked Sage long before the game launched, because I love the "energy-slinging ******" archetype (be it mage or a guy in repuslor-equipped suit (or both combined)). I would have no chance of getting on that board or earn any "cool" stuff.
So while I agree in principle with rewarding "best of the best", I simply think that so much catering to one spec is not a good idea, especially when there are some who just cannot play that spec no matter how much they want.

Hardmode FPs aren't even difficult. You can solo Athiss HM as light armor wearing tank. If you don't want to do it as tank it can be 2 manned: go to Youtube and search for Athiss HM two man marauder
Check other videos from same user.

It's best ability in the game. Of course that includes similar ability for tech users.